Sunday, August 06, 2006

New Home For Cop The Truth

We've moved (to www.CopTheTruth.Typepad.com), so please come over and say hello. The first drink is on me. Actually, I just had a glass of wine, so the first drink has been taken. Sorry!

Thanks to everyone who visited us here and took the time to comment, it's been greatly appreciated (yes, even you, "HC"). Your input has helped us make the decision to move on to a more advanced Cop. I hope to see you all at the new site (we even have new carpet there!). If you blogroll Cop, please update your blogrolls to link the new site.

This one will stay up just in case some vagabond wonders in off of the street, looking for shelter. Or in case some phreak, say a family member (like a sister or a brother-in-law) decides they like the b/w version of Cop better, and I have to switch back. Insufferable know-it-alls! Not that there's anything wrong with that.

This is like graduating high school. Except then, I had friends, and stuff. Oh, and a family that supported me. Oh, and there were a few hotties lingering around (you know who you are). Damnit, I promised myself I wouldn't cry!

It is said that, when one door closes, another opens. Off to a new piece of sky!

Saturday, August 05, 2006

U.S. And France Agree

FOX News has this story about an apparent agreement at the U.N. Security Council that will call for an end to the fighting in the Middle East. The agreement "calls for a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations," according to the AP.

The U.S. agreed to the draft after it guaranteed Israel the right to self-defense and retaliation for any more Hezbollah attacks. It appears that the French may actually join in peacekeeping duties, so the terrorism alert above is published for their protection. Unless, of course, they send in the FFL, which is the only "French" entity I have any respect for.

What we really need is a resolution from the U.N.S.C. ordering Hezbollah to disarm and disband.

Friday, August 04, 2006

U.S. Troops to Lebanon?

October 1983 was a month I'll never forget.

On October 23rd, I was commanding a small team of troopers who were conducting vehicle inspections at a missile site in West Germany. Car bombs were all the rage at the time, and there were two very active terrorist groups in Germany that liked making things go boom. As I helped inspect a civilian contractor's vehicle, one of my trooper's ambled up with a very serious expression on his face.

"Sarge, phone call. It's battalion."

Lovely. Like I need to talk to some Major who has nothing better to do than sit around and think up stuff for some young buck Sergeant to do. A few minutes later, I briefed my team that the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, had been bombed. Naturally, it was a car bomb. 241 Marines and other servicemen were killed that day. Our security ramped up immensely after that.

For a long time, those two days haunted me. Grenada, because I knew that my unit had seen combat without me and that I had missed out on the fighting that I had been training for for so long. And Beirut, because I could still the faces of the Marines that they pulled out of those destroyed barracks. The ones who lived and the ones who died.

I learned to live with missing Grenada. Beirut, not so much.

Maybe it was the fact that we never seemed to do anything to retaliate for what happened to those brave men. As if we could ever do enough, or kill enough, to even the score.

So naturally, a story like this makes me nervous. The possibility that we could send more "peacekeepers" to Lebanon, however unlikely, scares me. We don't need more brave men and women sitting over there, under the auspices of the U.N., with big targets on our their backs.

Support Israel? Yes. And with combat troops, if necessary. But no more "peacekeepers." It's someone else's damned turn.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

82nd Airborne Back To Afghanistan

Stars & Stripes reports that the newly-formed 4th Brigade Combat Team will be re-re-deploying to Afghanistan. Details of the deployment have not yet been released. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team will be re-deploying to Iraq later this month, and, with two of the four Infantry Brigades gone, the 82nd Airborne will be hard pressed to fulfill its mandate of America's Rapid Deployment Force.

Civil War In Iraq?

FOX News has this report about the testimony today of SecDef Rumsfeld and others before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Gen. John Abizaid, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Pete Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also testified. The entire event was something less than positive.

Senators Clinton and McCain in particular, both potential 2008 presidential candidates, put the witnesses through the ringer. All three men agreed that there have been setbacks in the war with Iraq, and that civil war is always a possibility, but they also suggested that victory can still be achieved.

Quotes from the hearing:

Rumsfeld: "Americans didn't cross oceans and settle a wilderness and build history's greatest democracy only to run away from a bunch of murderers and extremists who try to kill everyone that they cannot convert and tear down what they could never build. We can persevere in Iraq or we can withdraw prematurely until they force us to make a stand nearer home. But make no mistake, [extremists] are not going to give up whether we acquiesce to their immediate demands or not. Ultimately the sectarian violence is going to be dealt with by Iraqis."

Abizaid: "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I have seen it." "I think there is a demand for military, political and diplomatic activities that move Iraq toward stability ... and I believe this current government, which is a four-year government, has that opportunity." "Iraq is only one part of a broader regional struggle underway. ... The vast majority of the people in the region do not want extremists to win,"

Pace: "Shiite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other. The weight of that must be on the Iraqi people and the Iraqi government." "We are a nation at war, fortunately most of our fellow citizens are not affected by that war every day. Our enemy knows they can not defeat us in battle, they do believe however they can wear down our will as a nation. They are wrong." Winning the global War on Terror "will not be easy, this will not be quick and this will not be without sacrifice, but we will persist and we will prevail."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, in Baghdad:His government is "highly optimistic that we will terminate terrorism this year. The Iraqi forces will take over security in all Iraqi provinces by the end of this year gradually, and if God's will, we will take the lead."

I don't know what to think about this mess anymore. There is no doubt in my mind that our troops are fully capable of winning any conflict that they are involved in, but politics is taking a heavy toll here. Reality just isn't what it once was.

Part of me says just get out, and if they want to kill each other, as they have for thousands of years, then let them! Why should our brave men and women fight and die for something that many Iraqis don't seem to be willing to fight and die for? But I know that if we did pull out, we would be back there within ten more years, spilling more blood in the same old mud. And it would be much more difficult an endeavor the third time around.

Staying in Iraq to finish the job seems the only reasonable option. We cannot abandon all of our efforts there thus far, just because things are not improving vastly. We knew it would be a fight going in and it has been. But leaving now would only render worthless all of the sacrifice offered thus far. And I know that we can win, if the politicians and the negative news media will just shut up and let our troops prosecute their battle plans. But that's not about to happen, is it?

Also in Iraq, the completely worthless SecGen Kofi Annan wants the UN mission in Iraq extended for another year. Huh. What, exactly, is the UN doing in Iraq? Here's a hint: it's doing the same thing in Iraq that it's doing in Lebanon, Darfur, Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Balkans, etc. In a word, nothing.

If the UN really wanted to do something, they could take over peace-keeping duties in Iraq, freeing US troops to return home. Wouldn't that be something?

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Haditha Update

Stars & Stripes reports that the initial investigation into the alleged massacre of innocent civilians by U.S. Marines is coming to an end. The report apparently supports the initial charges against the Marines. However, the investigation is continuing and no charges have been filed. Another phase of the investigation will look into the possibility that Marine Officers tried to cover up the incident.

Rep. John Murtha, D.-Pa., accused the Marines of cold-blooded murder in a statement on May 17th, and at least one of the Marines is firing back with a lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed against Murtha, alleges that he made false and defamatory statements against SSgt. Frank Wuterich when he accused him of murder and war crimes. The lawsuit seeks damages of not less than $75,000.00. Yahoo! News story.

The three writers appeared at a charity event at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

"I can resolve the story now and it's fun in a way it wasn't before because finally I've reached my resolution, and I think some people will loathe it and some people will love it, but that's how it should be," said Rowling.

She is reportedly "well into" the final book, but is making no promises about the fate of the now-famous trio. "We're working toward the end I always planned but a couple of characters I expected to survive have died and one character got a reprieve." She would not provide more details.

The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie is scheduled for release next July, and fans are already counting down. The final book is expected late next year or early in 2007.